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Because two of the children had managed to escape.
One of the two children who got away was Thomas Karl.
A couple of months ago, the killings had started up again. Two children had gone missing—both blondes—within days of each other. Then about a month later, their bodies were found in the park with dolls. Shortly after, another little boy and girl had been taken, and so far, their bodies hadn’t turned up. They were hoping the children were still alive.
Twenty years between killings, they weren’t sure whether the original killing pair had returned or whether a copycat had taken their place. Now that Thomas Karl, one of the only two people who knew the identities of the couple, had turned up on their radar, carjacking someone, then shooting three cops, it seemed plausible that he could be the one replicating the original crimes. Especially since . . .
“And you know who she is?” Allina continued.
He drew in a slow breath. “She’s the other one,” he murmured.
Clara Candella was the other child who had escaped the Doll Killers alongside Thomas Karl. She too had been six when she’d been abducted, and she and Thomas had been missing almost six weeks before they were found, badly malnourished and dehydrated, wandering alone at the side of a road.
“They were together, the only two surviving victims, just months after the killings started up again,” Allina stated the obvious.
Narrowing his eyes at her, he replied, “He carjacked her.”
“As far as we know.”
“He cut her, she was bleeding; you saw that yourself,” he reminded his partner.
“Did she mention that she knew the man who carjacked her?”
“She was in shock, getting anything out of her was a struggle.” He’d been concerned about Clara from the moment she’d first stepped from her vehicle. In his car, when he’d been questioning her, he’d had to repeat things to her several times to get answers. Her eyes had been glassy and vacant, her voice soft and far away, and she had struggled to focus on anything he’d said to her. And then in the ambulance, just when he’d thought her mind was starting to clear, and she was starting to pull it together, she had fainted. He had seen it coming—all of a sudden her already pale face had drained of color, her eyes had gone all unfocused, and then she was gone. In a way, he’d been glad she’d passed out because then she hadn’t been able to protest being taken to the hospital.
Before that, though, he had noticed something in her that indicated the attraction he’d felt for her was mutual. The way she’d looked at him, been comforted by him, the way her cheeks had turned pink with embarrassment when she’d told him she liked romance books. Perhaps, depending on what her relationship to Thomas Karl turned out to be, he would think about asking her out. The carjacking case was closed. Thomas was dead, and she wouldn’t be a victim in an open case he was working on—there was nothing preventing him pursuing things with her.
“The two of them together, though, right when the doll murders have started up again; we can't deny the possibility that Thomas and Clara were working together and they were the ones behind the latest abductions and murders,” Allina pointed out.
“Then why would he carjack and hurt her?” Jonathon felt it in his bones that Clara was nothing more than an innocent victim. Again.
Allina shrugged. “Maybe they were working together and then she got cold feet, wanted to pull out, and he wouldn’t let her. Or since the original killings were committed by a pair, maybe Thomas started on his own but wanted to replicate things properly so he tracked down his old doll partner and tried to force her to help him and she refused, so he hurt her,” she suggested.
To Jonathon, that sounded a lot more plausible. He didn’t like the idea of anyone being a threat to Clara’s safety. Although if Thomas had appointed himself the reincarnation of the Doll Killers, now that he was dead, that meant the two children he’d recently abducted were left all alone. Which meant that Clara was their best bet at learning anything that might help them find the children before it was too late. She’d been the last person to talk to Thomas before he died—hopefully, he’d said something that would help them.
As if reading his mind, Allina said, “We need to talk to Clara.”
Clara had still been unconscious when the ambulance had left to take her to the hospital. Jonathon doubted that they would get anything useful out of her tonight, but first thing tomorrow morning, they'd visit her. He may be physically attracted to Clara Candella, but absolutely nothing was going to stop him from getting the answers he needed to solve this case.
February8th
1:30 A.M.
She was so cold.
Cold and hungry and thirsty, and she just wanted to go home.
Clara knew she’d made a mistake when she’d walked away from her mother at the supermarket, but now she didn’t know how to make it right.
She wanted her mother.
Tommy did, too. He was always crying for his mom. She tried to help him, but she didn’t know what to do.
Clara shivered.
The room was too cold.
It was dark in here, too, and Clara was scared of the dark.
